Vol. 1 · Fitchburg, Massachusetts · Established 1764

Burg Budget

An Independent Accounting of City Hall

Other Excise - Rooms

An extra charge added to your bill when you stay at a hotel or motel in Fitchburg, on top of what the state already charges.

This climbed to $1,265,000 this year, about 15% more than the $1,100,000 it was in FY2025. It dropped to zero in FY2022 before coming back the following year. Put another way: back in FY2021 this made up about 5.0% of Local Receipts - today it's 10.0%, a bigger slice than before.

Computed from each fiscal year's own revenue recap figures below - see Methodology.

Backstory

A big share of this line historically comes from a single property: the Great Wolf Lodge water park resort, which alone has generated roughly $1 million a year in hotel tax for the city in some years. That's worth keeping in mind looking at the chart above - swings in this line often track what's happening at one hotel more than the local hotel market as a whole. The resort laid off 700 workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the largest single mass layoffs in Central Massachusetts at the time, which lines up with this line briefly dropping to zero.

Source: Worcester Business Journal

By Fiscal Year

Source: each year's own Mayor's Budget recap — see Methodology
Fiscal YearAmount
FY2026$1,265,000
FY2025$1,100,000
FY2024$900,000
FY2023$900,000
FY2022$0
FY2021$500,000
FY2020
FY2019
FY2018
FY2017

Governing law: M.G.L. c. 64G (room occupancy excise)

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